by KB Inglee
A stately, dark-haired woman came into the room with a girl of about eleven and introduced herself as Mrs. Ruggles. “And this is my daughter, Anita.”
Anita, in a blue dress and white pinafore, was holding a lace handkerchief. Her eyes were red and swollen.
“Captain Hobbs said I might provide some service for you,” prompted Emily in the face of Mrs. Ruggles’s uneasy silence.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Ruggles. “I am a bit embarrassed about this, but Mr. Hobbs said it would be fine to ask for your help. Anita’s bird…”
She gestured to the cage by the window which was in shadow. Emily stepped over to the cage and frowned at what she saw. On the bottom of the cage, a cream and yellow canary lay stiff. Its head was wrenched back at an ugly angle. Someone had wrung its neck and flung it back into the cage. Captain Hobbs expected her to investigate the murder of a pet bird? Did he think Lawrence Research had no better work to do?
“Was this your bird, Anita?” asked Emily, keeping her voice soft. She must not let the child hear her anger.
“Yes,” answered the child. She was trying to look grown up, but clearly struggling with grief and shyness.
“What was its name?”
“Horatio.”
“How long had you owned Horatio?”
“He was a Christmas present. Not last year, but the year before.”
“When did you discover him?” Emily turned her questions toward Anita’s mother.
“This morning when the maid came in to open the curtains. The cage door was open and when she went over to shut it she found the bird just like this.”
“And you went to the police?” asked Emily. She couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice.
“Oh, no,” laughed Mrs. Ruggles. “Mr. Hobbs stopped by this morning to see Mr. Ruggles on another matter. My husband is out of town so I told him what had happened and he said he would be in touch with you.”
“Who is in the house?” asked Emily, suppressing her anger. She would have to take this job as seriously as any other for the sake of the girl. Emily could remember times when she would have happily beheaded her sister Susan’s bird. Jenny Lind was noisy and smelly and sometimes Susan was so insufferable she deserved to lose her bird. Still, Emily could spare a morning if it would help the bereaved child.
“My husband is away, so there is myself, Anita, my son Henry, and the baby. My brother, Zachary Fowler, was here this morning and will be back in a while. He and my husband are partners and their office is in the back of the house.”
“He doesn’t live here?” asked Emily.
“No, he lives nearby with his wife. They are close enough so he can walk.”
“Servants?”
“The cook, two maids, my husband’s manservant, and a gardener who also cares for the horses and drives when necessary. He and the cook live over the stable. The maids live upstairs.”
“I would like to look around the room. Would the two of you remain here to answer my questions?” Emily glanced at the curtains and the furniture.
Mrs. Ruggles sat on the sofa, but Anita followed Emily, watching what she did.
“Who was the last to see Horatio alive?” asked Emily, returning to the cage.
“I said goodnight to Horatio and went upstairs with Mother.”
“When was that?” Emily, using a pencil from her purse, poked at the dead bird lying on yesterday’s newspaper. She shifted the hard little body to see what was under it, and found only bird droppings and seed cases.
“About seven,” said Mrs. Ruggles.
Next she went to the window beside the cage. The morning snow lay undisturbed on the top of the bushes. Inside there was no dirt or dust anywhere on the sill, but there was a fresh scratch in the paint as though something sharp had been dragged across it. She pulled out the curtain. Could she find any other indication that someone had come through the window?
“Did Horatio like to sing?” Emily put out her hand to keep Anita from stepping on the carpet in front of the window.
“Oh, yes. He sang all the time, except when it was dark.”
“Did you cover his cage at night?”
“No,” said Mrs. Ruggles. “We just drew the curtains and left the room in darkness.”
“What time would that have been? And did anyone hear him last night after the curtains were closed?”
“I drew the curtains myself and carried the lamps out with me, maybe an hour after Anita went up to bed. No one heard the bird after that, but I was upstairs, so it is unlikely that I would have heard him.”
Mrs. Ruggles tapped her foot and said, “Really, Mrs. Lawrence, I have things I must attend to this morning.”
Anita seemed comforted by a grownup taking an interest in the death of her bird, so Emily ignored Mrs. Ruggles’s impatience.
“I would like to question Henry as well, if you don’t mind.”
“He is only seven,” Mrs. Ruggles protested.
“I won’t be long and I won’t frighten him.”
With a sigh, Mrs. Ruggles rang for the maid, who went to fetch Henry.
Emily moved slowly around the room, showing Anita what sections of the carpet to avoid. A green and white smudge on the wall by one of the gold-framed paintings looked like bird droppings. Emily lifted the picture from the wall. Behind it was a wall safe. On the dial bright brass showed through scratches in the black paint. She tried the handle and pulled it open. Inside were four jewelry boxes and a few unopened letters.
“Is this what is usually kept in the safe? Anything else?” asked Emily. Her original theory that this was simply a case of brotherly spite would no longer serve.
Mrs. Ruggles’s face paled. “All we keep in it is my jewelry. From time to time my husband would use it for some work papers that he wished to keep separate.”
“Who has the keys?” asked Emily, opening one of the boxes, empty now except for a gold ring wedged between the satin lining and the side of the box.
“My husband and my brother. If I want a piece of jewelry, my husband takes it out and locks it in my vanity drawer.”
Emily handed the box to Mrs. Ruggles, who took out the ring and stroked it lovingly before returning it to the box. “This was my grandmother’s.”
Emily handed her the other empty boxes. Mrs. Ruggles looked in each, but said nothing. She dropped heavily onto the sofa.
Asking Anita to sit next to her mother, Emily said, “I’m afraid the next part is not very dignified, but there is only one way to do it. When was this carpet swept last?”
“Yesterday morning. What difference can that make?”
With a sigh Emily dropped to her hands and knees in front of the window by the bird cage. A foot of soft wood floor, painted a deep green, separated the wall and the carpet. In one of the cracks between the floor boards was a tiny bit of mud. The nap of the carpet had been disturbed at the very edge. The carpet in front of the wall safe was disturbed in the same way.
A young man in short pants crept around the door and into the room.
“Ah, Master Henry,” said Emily, rising from her knees. “My name is Mrs. Lawrence. Did you know that Horatio was dead?”
“Yes, the maid found him this morning.”
“Mrs. Ruggles, I hadn’t intended to do this, but since the case has taken an unexpected turn, I’d like to question your son alone.”
To Emily’s surprise Mrs. Ruggles did not protest. She nodded and led Anita out of the room.
“Did you like Horatio?” asked Emily.
“He was all right, I guess, for a bird. I like Jacob better.”
“Who’s Jacob?”
“My puppy. He is a terrier.”
“Was it he who was barking earlier?”
“Yeah, that was him. Mama yelled at him and he stopped.”
“Did you hear Horatio singing after e
veryone went to bed last night?”
“No. But Jacob woke me up…. Oh! You won’t tell Mama, will you? He isn’t supposed to spend the night in my room, but I sneaked him in. He sleeps at the foot of my bed. He jumped down and scratched at the door, but when I called him back, he lay down and went back to sleep.”
“Did he bark?”
“No.”
They were interrupted by a jovial voice from the front hall. “Where is that mutt and his boy?”
Henry laughed.
“Who’s that, Henry?” Emily asked.
“That is my Uncle Zac. He always brings a treat for Jacob. He works in an office at the back of the house with my father.”
“I see. Now, Henry, were you angry with your sister yesterday? I know sometimes I was very angry with my sisters.”
“No, Mrs. Lawrence, I never even saw her after breakfast. Father took me and Jacob horseback riding ’til he had to take the train to Richmond. We ate dinner out, and when I got back I went up to my room with Jacob, so Mama wouldn’t see.”
“Thank you, Henry, you’ve been very helpful. Now I have a job for you and Jacob. I want you to sit in front of the parlor door and not let anyone into the room until I come back. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes, ma’am. I can do that.”
Emily closed the parlor door, turned the key that was in the lock, and handed the key to Henry. Then she pulled up a stool so he could sit with his back to the door. Mrs. Ruggles joined them in the hall.
“I am going to fetch the police. Don’t let anyone in; don’t let anyone take the bird away,” Emily instructed the young man.
“I never thought this would be more serious than just the death of a pet bird,” said Mrs. Ruggles, wringing her hands.
“The missing jewelry makes it a police matter.”
“I want to bury my bird,” cried Anita.
Emily took the girl’s hand. “You’ll have to wait. But I’ll make sure no one takes him away. Is that all right?”
The girl nodded.
* * * *
Before heading down the street, Emily quickly inspected the outside of the parlor windows. They were too high for her to see into the room, but a tall man might be able to do so. The topiary boxwood bushes grew far enough apart for someone to stand between them.
Nearly an hour later, Emily showed Captain Hobbs the same bushes. She smiled as she pointed to the single, perfectly formed print of a man’s shoe in the mud under the window.
“What is going on, Mr. Hobbs?” Mrs. Ruggles nearly shrieked as she let them in the front door. “My jewelry is missing. You sent this woman to look into the death of a pet. That should have been perfectly straightforward matter. Instead she locks our doors and orders us around.”
“Now, Mrs. Ruggles,” said Captain Hobbs, “calm yourself. I’m afraid this is more serious than we first thought. Mrs. Lawrence found signs that the house had been broken into. Let her show me what she discovered, then I’ll talk to you and your brother.”
Captain Hobbs asked Henry, who had not budged an inch from his watch, for the key. At Emily’s nod he handed it to him.
When Emily and Captain Hobbs were alone in the parlor, she moved to the window. “You were right, the bird has been murdered. Probably so he wouldn’t alert the family to what happened in this room. Yesterday the carpet had been swept and the curtains closed last night. They were not opened this morning until I arrived. If you get down you can see that the nap of the rug was disturbed in front of the window. You can make out three sets of toe marks pointing toward the wall.”
Hobbs did as instructed.
“Then there is the scratch on the sill. But look at this.” She turned the curtain and pointed to a green and white smudge on the lining. “It’s just like the one on the wall by the safe.” She pointed across the room. “See the mark on the wall? Again the nap of the carpet is disturbed, this time by a single set of prints.”
“I see,” Hobbs admitted, “but the scuffs on the carpet are not clear enough to compare with the print outside the window.”
Emily shrugged. “They might not even match.”
“Very well, Mrs. Lawrence. Let’s tell them.”
* * * *
Mrs. Ruggles and her brother joined them in the parlor. The lady of the house took the sofa, while her brother sat near the door.
“Did you find the culprit who killed Anita’s bird, Mr. Hobbs?” asked Mr. Fowler.
“I’m afraid this is more serious than the death of the bird. It appears that last night this house was broken into and something taken from the safe. Do either of you have the key?”
Fowler nodded. “I do.”
“Show me,” said Captain Hobbs. Fowler pulled a key from his waistcoat pocket.
Emily picked up the box with the ring and handed it to Mr. Fowler.
“You couldn’t take that, could you Mr. Fowler?” asked Emily. “Not a piece of your family history.”
“Me?” Mr. Fowler sprang to his feet. “The thief simply overlooked it. I’m sure he stole enough to make his fortune.”
“Did you take some papers as well?” Emily pressed.
“What makes you think I took the things out of the safe?” Mr. Fowler crossed his arms, a smirk on his face. An innocent man would have been outraged.
Emily explained. “First of all, there is a smudge of bird droppings.”
“I saw it, on the wall by the safe.” Mr. Fowler pointed to the stain.
“No,” said Emily. “On the back of the curtain. You came into the room, strangled the bird to keep his singing from alerting the family, then you went to the window to fake the break in. You must have dirtied your finger in the bird cage and left a mark the curtain without realizing you had done so. Then you made the scratch on the window sill and planted a small wad of soil in the crack between the floor boards. All the marks on the carpet under the window show toes toward the wall, none show heel marks toward the wall. The smudge on the wall next to the safe was made deliberately to look like the thief strangled the bird and then went right to the safe. The scratches around the lock on the safe are fresh, but are quite different from the marks cracksmen make. You had the key so you didn’t have to struggle to open it.”
“If what you say is true, anyone could have come in and done that,” said Mrs. Ruggles. “It still looks to me as though someone broke in from the outside.”
“Two more clues point to you, Mr. Fowler. Henry had his dog with him in his bedroom last night.”
“Henry,” cried Mrs. Ruggles, turning to her son.
“I’m sorry to reveal your secret, Henry,” said Emily to the boy. “I hope your mother will find it in her heart to understand and forgive you in light of the circumstances. But in this case the dog’s behavior is important. The dog woke Henry by scratching at the door.”
Emily turned to Mr. Fowler. “Henry said you always have a treat for Jacob when you come. If it had been an outsider, Jacob would have barked, as he did when I arrived.”
“And the second thing?” asked Mrs. Ruggles, doubt creeping into her voice.
“The footprint outside the parlor window. It was there when I went to get the police. It had not been made in the snowy ground in the middle of the night, but in the mud of the sunny midday. I would be willing to bet there are still traces of it on your left shoe, Mr. Fowler, but not your right.”
“Zac, why?” asked Mrs. Ruggles, astonished.
“You believe them?”
“Yes,” she said very gently, “yes, I do. Was it the money from the jewelry?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.
Mrs. Ruggles narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips as though her brother were something related to the smudge on the wall by the safe. “It was a letter from that woman of yours. I saw it when I picked up the post. You were afraid Mr. Ruggles would tell your wi
fe.”
Zachary Fowler remained silent.
Mrs. Ruggles continued. “My brother has always had a flare for the dramatic, and he knew Mr. Ruggles would miss even a single piece of correspondence addressed to him. The mail came just before he left for Richmond. I took it to the office and he looked to see any were important. He pulled out two letters and put them in the safe to deal with when he returned. In order to get the letter, Zac would have to make it look as if someone had stolen something of value, and perhaps taken the letter in error.” Mrs. Ruggles glared at her brother as though daring him to deny it.
“What a fuss over nothing,” said Mr. Fowler, puffing himself up like a pigeon. “The mail was for the business and I have every right to see it. I have done nothing illegal. Your jewelry is in my desk. Easy enough to return.”
“You are quite wrong,” said Captain Hobbs. “I will be taking you downtown now.”
“What I can’t understand, Zac,” said Mrs. Ruggles as Captain Hobbs put handcuffs on her brother, “is why you would chose to hurt Anita in such a cruel way. She loved that bird.”
Mr. Fowler merely shrugged and said, “A bird’s no kind of pet. Not like a dog. Anita will forget it soon enough.”
Emily burned with anger. How could a fond uncle be so cruel?
Washington City, March 1882
My Dearest Anna,
For the last few years I have been reading several scientific journals in English, French, and German. If nothing else it keeps up my skill in those languages. For the most part they are boring and of little use, but now and then I find something of interest that is also useful. We have furnished a small laboratory in the office. We started out with household glassware. Bit by bit we have replaced the glass and crockery with proper lab-ware. So far we have managed not to blow up the office with the Bunsen burner.
This fall Charles bought a spectacular microscope to replace the second-hand one with the broken mirror we had used for ages. Years ago I began carrying a small magnifying glass in my purse. From time to time it comes in handy.